Correspondence
by HecateA
Summary: A series of letters between Frank and Hazel, a fighter and a lover, and two people who just generally miss each other. Oneshot.


**So here's a sketchy piece of writing that may or may not be too abstract and clumsy for everyone to understand. I'm warning you right now that this isn't mindless fluff. My Ship Week entries never seem to be... Speaking of ship weeks, here's your weekly update:**

July 14-20- Thalia and Luke (story: Keeping it PG), July 21-27- Beckendorf and Silena (I honnestly do try to call him Charles, I really do... anyways, the story for this is The Girl in the Attic), July 28- August 3- Grover and Juniper (story: The Track of Time), August 4-10- Chris and Clarisse (also known as: Scraps), August 11-17 Tyson and Ella (story: Skywards)

August 18-24- Frank and Hazel (ta-dah!)

August 25-31- Leo and Hazel, September 1-7- Leo and Reyna, September 8-14- Jason and Reyna, September 15-21- Jason and Piper, September 22-28- Free Ship! (YEE-HAW), September 28- October 7- Percy and Annabeth

**Enjoy the story, and thanks to Wierdo4 for, as per usual, being the poor unfortunate soul who gets my panicky drafts dumped upon him with shady instructions and "DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?" as the only comment. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the following characters. **

* * *

**Correspondence**

* * *

Dear Frank,

My letters are finally getting through to you! I'm so excited, I feel like punctuation can't even describe it. It feels like I've been waiting forever just to have you read a few scribbles on a page.

How are you? How is everything? What did you have for supper last night? How's the weather? Gods- I'm just so excited to finally get to hear from you! Seconds are supposed to make minutes and minutes build hours, but a tick of the clock honestly just feels like weeks without you around. I just got so used to you…

Just tell me everything that's new. I want to make sure you're alright.

XOXO

Hazel

* * *

Hazel,

_Supper?_ Hazel Katherine Levesque- you're worrying about what I had for _supper?_ Yet you know where I am? Besides, what I'm getting fed with back here is besides the point. The real question, now that we can ask them to each other, is how are _you? _You're not the one who gets lonely, you know, I always have company or someone in the room.

Okay, your questions since you'll be mad if I just ignore them.

1) I was actually skipping supper when I got your letter (don't get mad, it's just that nothing looked appetizing);

2) As for the weather we're in the smack center of a heat wave. Everyone's dehydrated or moody at the least, there's not much else you can do when you feel sticky and gros. It doesn't help morale around here at all;

3) What's new? On which front? Everything's always changing, _I _can't even keep up with it.

Also where did you learn 'XOXO'? That's very modern of you, Miss Levesque. It's like jeans on an escalator :P

I'm excited to hear from you too. I miss you like crazy Haze, you wouldn't believe it. Even in the middle of a heat wave smack in the middle of summer, everything feels darker. I miss my sunshine, and I'm counting down the days until I get to see you again.

Love you too,

Frank

* * *

Dear Frank,

Don't count down the days! Stay focused on what you're doing up there. The clock may be ticking but you better not be slacking Frank Zhang, I swear to the gods!

Also while I'm telling you what not to do- you'd promised never to talk about the escalator thing ever again! Or the jeans incident! Both of those things were _super _knew to me, and it's not my fault! You don't even deserve to know where I learned XOXO from.

That sucks about the weather. I _hate _heat waves. I much rather freeze to death than boil, char and bake- I don't understand people who wouldn't (don't tease me about my rebelling against Louisiana's weather, I can already hear it coming!) You can count the days until the heat wave is supposed to end, but that's it. No more exceptions ;P

But I know you well enough to know where you're coming from, and I do understand what you mean. It can't be easy fighting every day, but you have to do it okay? For everyone's sake? For my sake? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Sprinkles if you insist?

I don't have any news. My life is boring, after all. I guess that I got a lot of work done lately- I've been cooking with gas. I know that it's small and I make peanuts, but I really do love restoring all of this jewellery that people keep bringing in. The stories behind them can be so sweet or heartbreaking. A man had be restore a ring because he couldn't remember his deceased wife's name, but it was engraved somewhere on the ring (her name was Agnes, by the way).

Hoping that your news is good (I want news this time!),

Mysterious-X-O-X-O

Hazel

* * *

Dear Hazel,

You? Boring? I don't buy it for a second. I'd actually kill to see you doing your thing for just a second, see how you are for myself.

Me on the other hand? I get the same old every day. Everything is so… strict. Routine. Repetitive. And if things change… well, at this point it's for the worst. We both know that. And to make things even worst, I'm so far from you. I feel like I'm distanced from everybody at this point. To be honest, you'd make everything easier- no matter how selfish and ungrateful this makes me sound.

I mean, the most exciting thing that happened today is that Archie –a guy bunking with me- accidentally ate his pinkie ring during lunchtime. He choked on it and I had to call a nurse because he couldn't get it together. And even then it's kind of lame, because he's a grown man and not a two year old. He wouldn't talk to be for the rest of the day just to further insist on the stupidity of the accident.

I love how you're actually managing to keep this shop alive. I didn't quite put it past you, you little miracle worker, but I wasn't sure how business would be. Can I get another story?

Love you,

Frank

* * *

Dear Frank,

I miss you too, but we'll see each other soon right? You're just finishing up, from what I understand.

Also my life here is a disaster. I'm never going outside again and it's all your fault. You told me to try new things when we used to go to Berkeley together on Sundays, right? Okay, well, I got invited to go out for sushi with this guy I ended up playing cards with at the library (long story, but I promise that he's not a monster and that he's clear). Anyways, I didn't know what sushi was, but I love seafood so even if all explanations sucked, I figured that it would be alright- and it was. At the restaurant, the waiters and cooks were yapping around in Japanese in the kitchen (nothing like Mandarin, by the way, someone asked me if I could translate) and there were these really slow Beatles covers playing and it was just super cute. But then the waiter put this paste on the corners of our plates, and everyone else was putting it in the soya sauce or on their sushi and so I didn't want to be rude and figured that I had to try. _Oh my gods Frank do you know what wasabi is? _Probably. Everyone laughed and told me that I'd made a rookie mistake. I _am _a rookie to Japanese cuisine! And now I'm an enemy! Hands down, that was the least pleasant thing that's ever happened to me. _Wasabi is so horrible. _Why did the Japanese invent this? Why did they unleash it into the world? You have no idea, my tongue still feels burnt and I've been gnawing on ice cubes ever since. It's miserable!

Okay; here's a story from the shop. A woman came in with a ruby missing from her ring. I asked her if she wanted me to put a new stone in, or a ruby again. She told me not to put anything in, but melt down the ring and keep the gold for when I'd have to restore a ring for someone who was still in love. It turns out that her husband threw his wedding band in the ocean. I had her stay for tea after because she was absolutely destroyed- I don't even know how she found out about this. Her name was Charlotte. We can't cry of course, but I've never seen anybody come any closer. I know that it's not a good story like yours (I had to snort when I heard about Archie- seriously, they let you guys have _pinkie rings?), _nor is it a happy one by a longshot. However it made me think a lot. Distance really is a killer, isn't she? We can't help distance, we can't change distance, and we can't avoid it no matter how hard we try. We can make promises and try, but in the end it's nearly impossible in the long run. Distance is cruel. It's like death itself.

XOXO,

Hazel

* * *

Hazel,

I am just wrapping up this show. It shouldn't be long before I get back to you. Gods, I can't wait to have you back.

Also never change. Keep eating wasabi to avoid being rude, just… you're so adorable. You don't even try, I can't even handle it, it just comes naturally to you. Gods bless you, I didn't actually think that I could miss you more than I do now.

Distance always scared the life out of me. Like, when I was a kid and I asked my mom where she was going before she was deployed once? She pointed the Middle-East out to me on a map of the world. It was across a bunch of oceans with funky names that I hadn't even heard in school yet. I counted the time zones, I counted the latitude and longitude, I looked up the kilometers on the Internet… It was scary enough to know that Mom was going off to war, but that she was going to be so far too? I don't think that I slept for weeks. I think that my Grandmother drugged me so that I'd finally crash instead of eating Coffee Crisps over and over.

How is she, by the way?

News of the day: for ambiguous reasons, today we had a movie marathon! Piper's Dad was in this one. He really is a good actor, and he does his own stunts and actually fights believably. Piper told me that he even went up to a fight coordinator at some point and told her that his scene was unrealistic. He's a cool guy, you're going to have to meet him eventually.

Love you,

Frank

* * *

Dear Frank,

Gods, I can't wait for this place to feel like home.

One day we'll talk. Not soon (I'm assuming that he's still in good shape and really busy if he does his own stunts) but one day.

Your Grandmother is doing well. She's mad at you though, she doesn't want you to come down this early. She doesn't want you to _want _to come. She was all in my face, shooting the messenger et cetera, telling me that 'that foolish boy always thinks that the grass is greener on the other side'. She'll forgive you easily, though. Hug you, maybe. Or at least she will if I tell her to ;) I'm telling you, she's acting as if she adopted me. I made it all worst by accidentally calling her 'Grandmother' the other day. I was expecting to get back-handed, like that one time I screamed when she turned the vacuum cleaner on (don't laugh- those too were new to me), but she didn't even say a word. She smiled a bit, though. Told me how she'd never had a granddaughter because of how stubborn your mother was.

I think that distance is scarier in the sense of what it does. Like, I hate looking at a map and having to stretch my fingers to connect Point A and Point B, but it's scarier to learn the name of someone's child, or the day that someone married weeks after said event happened. You feel so much more alone in the world, so out of the loop and foolish- like you don't know what's going on anymore. You feel like you failed, like you're helpless if you get word of an emergency… Don't even get me started on the distance of _time. _

Love you,

Hazel

* * *

Hazel,

I'm sorry. I brought up a sore subject. Think of happy things. What did you have for supper last night? Did you accidentally try something spicy again or have you been on a soda-cracker diet since the wasabi incident? (Which, by the way, I still think of when I need a good laugh- read: often, and not just because it's an excuse to think of you). Also don't worry too much about distance. I meant it when I said so for the first time, and I mean it as much now: you can't be far from someone you're close to. I feel like you're right next to me on the days when I don't feel too homesick or lonely, because I can nearly imagine you saying things or making faces.

Also the Canucks won the Stanley Cup! You have no idea how happy I am, Hazel. I've been waiting for this day since I was old enough to skate and consciously realise and register that hockey existed. I know that you couldn't care less about sports, but you should have a beer to celebrate this. Today would be a good time to be in Vancouver.

Love you,

Frank

* * *

Dear Frank,

Ha, ha, ha. I haven't been eating soda crackers, thank you very much. Okay, so maybe I've been living off of gumbo and lots and lots of applesauce lately, but I honestly did think that the wasabi was avocado and that kind of trauma doesn't just go away, you know. I never _had _all of this food just available to me, right? This is all knew. So when foreign cuisine tries to kill me every time I get adventurous… Well, it doesn't make a good impression now does it?

Speaking of new food: I don't drink, but I had a Jell-O shot to celebrate the fact that your team has ceased to suck (I'm kidding! Your team doesn't suck that much right? I didn't even know that the Canucks were Vancouver's NHL team, I could have sworn that it was the Senators or something).

Speaking of new things, I changed my hair. Don't worry, I didn't cut it off! I thought about it, but then I realised that if you just walked into home one day as a surprise and saw that it was gone… Well, you'd probably cry or at least look like a kicked puppy. And I would be hanging around your neck trying to get a hug, so our intentions really would be too conflicted. I only straightened my hair- but I really didn't like it. It felt so weird, having it fall lower than usual. It tickles my back and I look like a different and faker person and it was just gross in general.

Hazel

* * *

Hazel,

Oh, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel. The senators are over in Ottawa. We just never got the time to work on your NHL knowledge, did we? That was a waste. Nearly as much of a waste as the fact that you still, to this day, cannot understand a Harry Potter reference for the life of you. That really needs to change pronto, remind me to work on that in case we forget, kay?

Also leave your hair alone! Your hair is perfect and I like flicking it around and you are right, I would probably cry if the opportunity to flick it was taken from me.

Speaking of hair, I notice that my mine's been growing. It's super weird to think of something like that at a time like this, but it's longer than it's ever been since I turned, like, eight.

Sorry for the brevity. I'm not feeling really well, and I don't feel like I have any news worth sharing.

Love,

Frank

* * *

Dear Frank,

You're not feeling well? Is everything okay? If something happened, I absolutely need to know right now. Understood? Or else I'm telling your Grandmother and there will be hell to pay.

Can you give me news from the others if you're so set on your life being boring? Although I do think that you should work on that concept. Frank, you still get the sunshine and the clouds and the stars and the rain don't you? They're little things, but it's still a shame that you got used and bored of them.

XOXO,

Hazel

* * *

Dear Hazel,

News from the others: great idea.

Jason and Piper are still arguing about wedding colours. They're honestly the two people that you'd expect not to care less, but all of this wedding crap is super complicated according to what I understand. They finally settled on a date- August 1. I think that this is primarily to piss off Juno since that's only hours after her sacred month. I think that it's brilliant.

Percy and Annabeth and their little bundles of joy are doing okay- he got a big promotion the other day and Annabeth got a big award for reasons X over the weekend. It's a big deal, I think that she's on Wikipedia now. Matteo learned how to burp the alphabet the other day, and he was _super _proud to show me the other day (my official job as godfather is to encourage him to keep practicing despite the looks his murderous mother gives me). Little Marianna Hazel Jackson is a cutie, by the way- so we've all kind of started calling her Molly. She has this super curly hair nearly since she's born- like, too crazy to be Annabeth's, which I find ironic (another reason for you not to mess with yours until I get to the Underworld and flick it like crazy).

Leo's doing okay. He got together with this Clare girl a few months ago, and he hasn't scared her off yet. I met her, and the general consensus is that they actually both look really happy, so that's good. She's about as much of a strange cookie as he is. Prayer circles around the country are trying to lull the gods into never having them have kids. Leo's also still running that perhaps-legal bike shop from his garage as a side job (it might be a hobby at this point?).

I haven't heard from Reyna in a while because she's been undercover, but Jason says that she's okay and if anyone would know it'd be him. I'm sure she says hi, and I'll correct you if I find out the opposite.

Nico's still traveling around, stopping by foreign countries to teach English and replenish his cash and/or destroy sketchy monsters. He hasn't been to either camp since the war, and he is still pissed that your father won't let him into Elysium anymore. I get where Pluto's coming from though, he doesn't want those of us who are still alive and living to communicate with the dead. It would eliminate the distance; make death hurt and matter a little less.

And me? Yeah, everything's okay I guess. Well, not really. My head's been killing me and I can't keep anything down, so they're trying to figure out if it's just Wasting Syndrome (the whole lose-all-your-body-weight-cause-you're-sick thing) or if I'm developing meningitis. With my luck it's probably a brain tumour, but they hooked me back up to an IV for fluids. That's what this disease does, right? It just kills your immune system and so you get sick really easily- besides, I'm pretty much living in a hospital. I'm about as bad as they get without being dead, Hazel. Honestly, this may be the last time I get sick and at this point, I don't mind.

It sounds horrible to say, and I kind of feel bad… but I'm tired of fighting. This half-assed life in and out of a hospital, knowing that one day I won't be coming out just like everyone else who gets this sickness, never being able to do anything, always worrying, always fretting, always getting looks and uncomfortable questions... it's not worth it. I just want it to stop. If this is going to kill me sooner or later, anytime now would be great so that everybody can move on. I've even been scratching at my lifeline with anything that I can get my hands on. I wasn't ready to say that I didn't want to live before, when you died in the Giant War, even though it was true for a long time. But I've done my dues. I really have tried to live without you (I failed), I did make a difference in the world (a small one, but I did) and I guess that I did accomplish some things in life. But now? I'm tired.

At least I know, since these letters are actually going through, that soon it's all over. Soon I get to see you again.

Love always,

Frank

* * *

**Read it again knowing how it ends. I swear that it still makes sense then too. Anyways, thank you!**


End file.
